Snowy Owl

[denise ippolito]

1D Mark III
500mm +1.4 ex.
ISO 200
1/320 sec. at f/7.1
Tripod

First post in this forum!!:p

[Bob Malbon]

Hard to top that for your first Bird! Bob

[Art Kornienko]

Lovely shot Denise, eye contact is nice, I like the perch, crop is great can't find much to say other than very nice.

[Ramon M. Casares]

OUTSTANDING first post, great comp, light, exposure, and colors, I see a little soft halo arround the perch wich IMO need a bit more sharpening. Big congratulations and Welcome!

[John Blumenkamp]

A great looking image Denise... love the overall composition, and I love images like this that have a two tone background like you captured here. The perch is great, and is nicely framed coming out of the lower corner. Nice work!

I enjoyed your site too... especially your wildlife work.

[Ed Vatza]

VERY nice Denise. If I may ask, where did you find this guy?

[Mike Tracy]

Wonderful pose and subject. I can't decide if I would rather see the perch sharper or left as is. I also like the transition from the blue sky to clouds.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Big welcome Denise!

Great catch. Details, light and that sight is great. Please keep them coming.

[Doug Brown]

Welcome to the big board Denise! That's quite a first post! Terrific perch and pose, although it does look like you applied a gaussian blur to the BG that also blurred a little bit of the perch. Love the BG too.

[denise ippolito]

Hi Doug, I QM the bird and ran noise reduction then inverted and sharpened. I didn't sharpen the perch- I thought it best to let it blend in more w/ BG and not compete w/ bird. Was that wrong? Is there a rule?

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Excellent image Denise. Love the positioning of your owl and the smooth, well proportioned background. Great achievement. :)

[John Ippolito]

Outstanding, Denise! Good long lense technique. The comp, perch, BG, light, and detail is wonderful-you're on a roll !!!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose, setting and BG. Another vote for more sharpening, bird and perch.

[Mark Schmitt]

Outstanding image. The lighting is very diffuse and even. I personally thing you should not have blurred the perch as it is in the fore-ground with the bird. Bluring it causes the eye to be drawn to it because it is NOW blured as most of the people above have noted: i.e. they see it because it draws their attention. Think would not have included it in the mask witht the bird. Great shot and a wonderful first post. ;)

[Juan Aragonés]

I echoe what Mark said. The owl´s pose is fantastic and the stare is superb. Good job ;-)

[denise ippolito]

Thanks everyone-I re-did my file and masked the perch as well.

[Doug Brown]

I'd love to see your repost Denise. I didn't mean to imply yesterday that there was some rule that you violated. It's just that our brains expect things to look a certain way. We notice when those expectations are not met; in this case you have an in-focus bird and an OOF perch. People's eyes were naturally drawn to this discrepancy.

[denise ippolito]

Doug, I wasn't sure if there was a rule of thumb to go by or not- I did the QM on perch and it does look good, I didn't realize it would attract more attention if it blended into BG but I think you and others are right it does, thankyou for your help it is most appreciated. Will post my re-post when I get home later if I get a chance,once again thankyou for your help.

[Gus Cobos]

Congratulations are in order Lady Denise.
I like the composition and capture...the details and color rendition are superb...agree with the perch being a tad on the soft side...re-work the base image and re-post...well done...looking forward to seeing more...:cool:

[david cramer]

You've certainly entered this forum with a bang! Beautiful image, and the suggestions are spot on.